Manufacturing and purchasing animal feed is largely dependent upon economics. Livestock and pet owners strive to supply their animals with feed which is nutritional, however, oftentimes the most nutritional feed is prohibitively expensive. The animal feed manufacturer strives to produce a feed which provides a desirable nutritional profile for animals and is also affordable for the animal owner.
Young animals, with their immature digestive tracts, are among the most expensive and most difficult animals to feed. A second category of animals which are challenging to feed due to sensitive digestive tracts are exotic animals and immunosuppressed animals. Owners must take great care in choosing the feed for these animals to ensure that they can digest the feed and also to ensure that the feed does not harm the immature or sensitive digestive tract. Avian eggs such as chicken eggs have provided an excellent nutritional source of high quality proteins, fat, vitamins, and minerals for adult and baby animals alike. Egg protein contains high quality protein. By "high quality protein" it is meant protein generally lacking the antinutritional factors commonly found in feeds manufactured from soy beans. Egg protein also contains lysozyme which has been shown to provide protection against gram positive bacteria such as streptococcus albus and micrococcus lysodcilctios. However, animal feed relying primarily on chicken eggs as a protein source and as the major or only component is quite expensive.
Currently, avian eggs are spray-dried to produce feed which is suitable for pets and mink. Mink ranchers, who are less concerned with costs as compared to hog farmers, choose feed produced from spray-dried egg because factors within eggs enhances the shine in the mink's coats. Spray-dried eggs are also desirable for baby farm animals and particularly suitable for piglets. This suitability is attributed to a lack of antinutritional factors such as protease inhibitors, lectins, goitrogens, saponins, estrogens, cyanogens, phytate, oligosaccharides, and antigenic factors. These antinutritional factors cause atrophy and destruction of the villi of the small intestines. This results in malabsorption of nutrients in the small intestine and produces muscle cramps and diarrhea in animals with immature or sensitive digestive tracts.
The aim of animal feed manufacturers is to produce an economical feed having a high nutritional profile which is readily utilized or digested by the ingesting animal.